4 things you need to know about 4K video

A camera made by Irvine-based Red Digital Cinema could shoot up to 100 images in one second, each of them a 19 megapixel photo. That's more than enough detail to make ultra-detailed 4K video.

Three-dimensional technology is dead, at least until it rises again like a zombie for one more go at our brains. High definition had its day on Blu-ray. But starting this spring, $1,000 will buy you a 50-inch television set that can melt your retinas with 8 million pixels of detail flashing on your screen as many as 60 times per second.

It's called Ultra High Definition, or 4K. And it's poised to take over living rooms.

For comparison's sake, the standard-definition picture of DVDs shows 300,000 pixels, flashing 30 times per second. Today's Blu-ray discs top out at 2 million pixels. The highest-resolution iPad – called “Retina” for its purported ability to show more detail than the human eye can discern at a relatively close distance – has just over 3 million pixels.

But like earlier video advances, 4K is arriving in fits and starts. Here's what you need to know about the technology and how local companies are trying to capitalize on it.

KEVIN SPACEY, VIA IRVINE

Some 4K images get their start in a 110,000-square-foot facility in Irvine, where Red Digital Cinema assembles its UHD, highly configurable box-shaped cameras.

Billionaire Jim Jannard changed the way many people see the world through the lenses of his Oakley sunglasses in the 1980s, '90s and early '00s. Then he sold the company and took his cash to start Red.

Movies such as “The Social Network” and “The Hobbit” were made with those box cameras.

Last year, they also were used to shoot Kevin Spacey in the second season of “House of Cards,” which premiered on Neflix on Feb. 14. Some of the first 4K content you can watch from your couch will be Frank Underwood's predatory eyes as he sizes you up, almost as if he were glaring at you through little more than a window.

Red's latest “Dragon” sensor can capture a stunning 19 million pixels of detail in one frame. If that number doesn't impress, think in terms of megapixels.

In a single second, this $29,000 camera will capture up to 100 frames, each and every one of them an ultra-detailed 19-megapixel photo you could run as a magazine cover. Compare that to your own camera.

THERE'S NOT MUCH ON

So far, precious few movies or other video are available in 4K to consumers at home.

Netflix says it will start offering 4K with “House of Cards” this year and then convert other original content and a handful of nature documentaries to the higher resolution.

More is coming, from companies such as YouTube, and there's talk of older Blu-ray discs getting a 4K upgrade at some point. Would 4K discs work in earlier-generation players? Unlikely, but we'll see.

Sony offers a service that sells episodes of, say, “Breaking Bad” for $4 in 4K. It's $30 to buy a movie, there are also $8 rentals – but you have to play it from a separate $700 player box. That player comes with a big hard drive to store the giant videos, each of which can eat up more than 35 gigabytes.

And even if you do see 4K at home, what you see might weird you out. Your favorite actor might look a lot older than you remember when you see all the wrinkles.

If the frame rate (the number of pictures flashed on screen each second) is upgraded at the same time as the resolution, the look of a movie could be dramatically different than anything you've seen before.

Related Links

A camera made by Irvine-based Red Digital Cinema could shoot up to 100 images in one second, each of them a 19 megapixel photo. That's more than enough detail to make ultra-detailed 4K video.
The price hasn't been announced on Vizio's planned 120-inch 4K television, but it'll definitely cost a lot more than the $1,000 entry level Ultra HD unit that's 50 inches. IMAGE COURTESY VIZIO

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